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Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

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Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#231

Post by mindslight »

bhupy wrote: post #217
mindslight wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that there is a distinction between an individual performing an action of their own volition, and an individual performing an action to obtain income. The first represents the true will of the individual, while the latter only requires their desire to have a roof over their head. And as I said, the entity of the NYT is afforded protections that individuals are not. If individual rights are supremely important…

New York Times employees are employed at-will. We're not talking about minimum wage workers publishing content under duress here, we're talking about journalists and editors who generally join organizations they believe in. Tucker Carlson doesn't go on air and say the things he says because he's forced to, he does it because he wants to. Full disclosure: my wife works for the New York Times.

So your wife never complains that work is pushing her to do something that she does not want to do, and she's bargaining with management to try to do the right thing? And the transaction costs to her quitting and finding a new job are zero? IMO "at will" is only 99% correct, and the integral of its remainder builds up into some gross misbehavior.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#232

Post by mnouquet »

jolux wrote: post #202
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and when the mafia boss says, “You have a beautiful family” he is only complimenting you.

That's not an argument.

Yes it is, but obviously, you only taking these questions at face value.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#233

Post by cozuya »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #92

Scary stuff, I feel like I'm slowly watching as the U.S turns into a one party state, and enforced by the government itself. We argue about how it's okay for private companies to censor whatever they feel like, but what if it's the government pressuring them to do so? They themselves in this letter mention that 50% of Americans get their news from TV, and many American's have one choice of Cable provider, and even if…

Citation to Democrats "wanting to add 12-20 million illegal immigrant voters". An outrageous claim.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#234

Post by jandrese »

CivBase wrote: post #222
jandrese wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no more than 30 percent of the American population inhabits the insular, propaganda-rich right-wing media ecosystem, indicate that whatever one thinks of the result of the 2016 election, it could not have been purely the result of right-wing propaganda. 30% of the total American population could be 46% of the voting population. But this is a straw man argument, it would only take 1 counter example to disprove a sta…

> The comment about how Fox News has not spent years spewing misinformation simply because it is only talking about "Stop the Steal" nonsense is missing the forest for the trees. I rarely watch anything from Fox News, so I wouldn't know. The point is the Vox article cited in the letter does not back up the statement made. If it's as bad as you say, surely there must be a better source to cite. Regardless of any issue…

There are volumes written about the subject already.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_controversies#Studies...

For example:

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/study-explore...

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#235

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

opwieurposiu wrote: post #129
katmannthree wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be able to give specific examples of left-focused misinformation on the capitol riots, that is specific news articles from "trusted partisan" sources (CNN, etc) containing unsupported conspiracy theories?

Greenwald has a good write up regarding left-focused misinformation. Fire extinguisher, zip ties, firearms, etc. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-false-and-exaggerated-c...

This article doesn't disprove much.

Being "pro-trump" doesn't make the death not count. 3 of the five died because of the protests - it doesn't matter which side. You can argue that a stroke/heart attack may not have happened in a non-high pressure environment.

We don't need any more evidence than the mountains of video of people storming the capital. It's bad enough as is, it could have been far, far worse.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#236

Post by citilife »

cozuya wrote: post #207
citilife wrote: post #85

This is such a dangerous game to play. CNN knowingly misleads the public every single day. It's effectively public knowledge if anyone cares to investigate themselves. Going after FOX because the ruling party disagrees with them, but leaving CNN alone is the definition of authoritarian, regardless of your views. You can't single out voices. Further, who owns CNN? (Turner Broadcasting System) Who owns Turner Broadcast…

When did CNN viewers storm the capitol in attempt to overthrow the elected government, leading to the deaths of 7 people?

There's actually a lot of clips of CNN & other reporters helping and pushing protesters into the Capital Building...

https://twitter.com/LaurenWitzkeDE/status/134990457311734169...

Also, only two persons died of wounds confirmed at the Capital (both protestors). The only person who was shot, was recorded by the "reporter" in the video above was egging on the police & protestors at the time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/16/sullivan-vi...

Further, regarding the "7 deaths" two additional people died from a stroke and heart attack going to the Capital.

Yes, there were then three additional fatalities in the _days_ following the event. None of those deaths were linked back to the Capital building in a meaningful way (including the officer). While facts and the evidence can change, the current facts do not support the claims being made.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#237

Post by _-david-_ »

protonfish wrote: post #185
pfortuny wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that even mean? Did I agree to that?

You seem to want us to fight them with one arm behind our back. I, however, don't care whatever it is you think "we" decided. I believe we should fight fascist propaganda with all the the tools we can grab. Lord knows they are. Current authoritarian disinformation campaigns are a massive and immediate threat to all humanity. If you think so too, then stop bringing knives to this gunfight.

The problem is determining who is a fascist. The term fascist (and also Nazi) is one of the most overused words resulting in many people being falsely labeled fascist.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#238

Post by trey-jones »

Clubber wrote: post #224
trey-jones wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this: > Never the hands of authorities whether those be government or corporate. But I'm not sure about this: > Judging what is and is not misinformation must always be in the hands of the people. It's definitely a very difficult problem. I like to think that I personally can distinguish decently well between information and mis/dis-information, but I look around and see plenty of people who simply canno…

People certainly aren't perfect about judging the validity of information, but the danger is just too great to have a corporation and especially a government decide what's valid information.

I am in complete agreement.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#239

Post by offby37years »

trey-jones wrote: post #197
njharman wrote: post #35

Judging what is and is not misinformation must always be in the hands of the people. Never the hands of authorities whether those be government or corporate. Why must fight all censorship. Because once you allow "a thing" to be censored, it becomes possible to censor "any thing". Things in the past which were labeled misinformation and would have been suppressed for even longer (or forever) under current social attit…

I agree with this: > Never the hands of authorities whether those be government or corporate. But I'm not sure about this: > Judging what is and is not misinformation must always be in the hands of the people. It's definitely a very difficult problem. I like to think that I personally can distinguish decently well between information and mis/dis-information, but I look around and see plenty of people who simply canno…

If you don't trust your fellow citizens to discern misinformation from truth, you don't trust them to vote.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#240

Post by arrosenberg »

jolux wrote: post #120
arrosenberg wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the United States - the government is the public.

That's not really the case. The government is accountable to the public, but it also has the power to conceal things from the public, and take unilateral action in the case of the executive branch. What I mean by "the public" are individuals cooperating to boycott organizations they see as corrosive to democracy, which is the typical solution for problems like this. The government is expressly and pretty strongly for…

I tend to disagree with the notion that this letter is chilling on free speech. There is a difference between criticism of this government and agitprop designed to undermine the system of government. The 1A is designed to prevent the former, and this letter seems pretty clearly designed to fish for that latter.

I think it's a bad letter because Congress is trying to abrogate their responsibilities and act like this is AT&T's problem, when it isn't. They need to break up the monopolies and give people the tools to hold these businesses accountable, as you said.

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